Spectral imaging microscopy web sites and data.

The Internet is enabling greater access to spectral imaging publications, spectral graphs, and data than that was available a generation ago. The spectral imaging systems discussed in this issue of Cytometry work because reagent and hardware spectra are reproducible, reusable, and provide input to spectral unmixing and spectral components recognition algorithms. These spectra need to be readily available in order to determine what to purchase, how to use it, and what the output means. We refer to several commercially sponsored and academic spectral web sites and discuss our spectral graphing and data sites. Sites include fluorescent dye graph servers from Invitrogen/Molecular Probes, BD Biosciences, Zeiss/Bio-Rad Cell Sciences, and filter set servers from Chroma Technology and Omega Optical. Several of these sites include data download capabilities. Recently, two microscope manufacturers have published on their web sites transmission curves for select objective lenses-crucial data for anyone doing multiphoton excitation microscopy. Notable among the academic sites, PhotoChemCAD 2.0 has over 200 dyes and a downloadable database/graphing program, and the USC-A Chemistry UV-vis Database displays absorption spectra of many dyes and indicators used in clinical histology and pathology. Our Fluorescent Spectra graphing/calculator site presents dyes, filters, and illumination data from many of these and additional sources. PubSpectra is our free download site which uses Microsoft Excel files as standardized human/machine readable format with over 2,000 biomedical spectra. The principle that data is not subject to copyright provides a framework in which all scientific data should be made freely accessible.